The Bourgeoisie and Reformism

Published:PravdaNo. 23, January 29, 1913.

      Published according to thePravdatext.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,[1975],

      Moscow,Volume 18,

      pages534-535.Translated:Stepan ApresyanTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Thearguments ofRechconcerning the urgent issue
of strikes deserve the greatest attention on the part of the workers.

Thatliberal paper cited the following official data on the strike
movement:

Wewould note in passing that the figures for 1912 are plainly
understated, since the number of political strikers is given as only
511,000. Actually their number was about twice as great. We would, also
recall that as late as May 1912Rechdenied the political
character of our working-class movement, asserting that the whole movement
was only economic. But we intend to deal now with another aspect of the
matter.

Howdoes our liberal bourgeoisie assess this fact?

“Themain requirements of the political consciousness
   [why onlyconsciousness??] of Russian citizens have yet to be
   met,” wroteRech.“Theworking class everywhere is the most mobile and
   most sensitive section of the urban democrats ... the most active section
   of the people.... Given constitutional conditions ... given a normal
   political situation ... there would not have been the loss of tens of
   thousands of working days [because of the Putilov strike] in an industry
   which today is of extreme importance in view of external complications”
   (No. 19).

“Themain requirements of the political consciousness
   [why onlyconsciousness??] of Russian citizens have yet to be
   met,” wroteRech.

“Theworking class everywhere is the most mobile and
   most sensitive section of the urban democrats ... the most active section
   of the people.... Given constitutional conditions ... given a normal
   political situation ... there would not have been the loss of tens of
   thousands of working days [because of the Putilov strike] in an industry
   which today is of extreme importance in view of external complications”
   (No. 19).

Thepoint of view of the bourgeoisie is clear. “We” want an
imperialist policy, the conquest of foreign territory. “We” are
handicapped by strikes. “We” lose surplus value because of the “lost”
working days. “We” want to exploit the workers as “normally” as they do
it in Europe.

Splendid,liberal gentlemen! Your desire is legitimate, and we are
willing to support your effort if—if it is not futile and dead!

Rechcontinued: “It was not out of sympathy for liberties
that Prussian statesmen [it ought to have said “Prussian landlords”]
granted ‘the legalisation of the Social-Democratic Party’. Reforms
bear proper fruit when granted in good time.”

Suchis the consummate reformism of our bourgeoisie. It confines itself
to wistful sighs; it wants to persuade the Purishkeviches without hurting
their feelings, to make peace with them without removing them. It should be
clear to any intelligent person that by virtue of itsobjectivemeaning (that is, regardless of the good intentions of individual little
groups), the slogan of “legalisation of the Social-Democratic Party” is
an inseparable component of this wretched and impotent bourgeois reformism.

Wewould make only one remark. Bismarck succeeded in his reforms only
because he went further than reformism. As we know, he carried out a series
of “revolutions from above”; he robbed one of the world’s richest
countries of five thousand million francs, and hewas in a
positionto give universal suffrage and genuine legality to a people
intoxicated with a stream of gold and unprecedented military successes.

Doyou imagine, liberal gentlemen, that something of the kind could
happen in Russia?? Why, then, did you declare reforms in Russia to be
hopeless even in the case of the Archangel Zemstvo (a “reform”,
indeed!)??